Monday, August 29, 2016

Sometimes I Love Airports, and Then There Are Times When I Lose All Faith in Humanity and Have No Clue How Our Species Functions

We made it. Phew. The flight home was almost impossible. We got to the
airport at 2 to leave by 3, but two hipsters snuck onto the plane with two
other people’s tickets, causing a delay (they had to be removed) and while this
happened, storms hit Chicago, causing us to be grounded for two hours, which
meant everyone missed their connections and Sunday was an absolute mess.

Tunga and I had a few hours to kill and planned on getting
dinner at O’Hare so we weren’t that stressed. The other customers, however,
were irate and with the cell-phone generation, we got to hear it all.

I knew things were odd when we entered the plane and the
stewardess said there are two men sitting in your seat. Please ask them to
move. We did, and then they moved to the seats in front of us until those
customers came. They moved again. This continued to happen for a while. Then
the stewardess had a very difficult time getting people to put their chairs
upright, turn off their technology, and even put on their seatbelts. The plane
was a congregation of complete assholes. The worst, however, was this blonde
behind us with a plastic face who kept calling all of her friends in “high
places” to register her complaints about how bad the airline was. She demanded
to get off the plane to talk to people who knew what they were doing and didn’t
even respect the pilot. Tunga and I were perplexed that any of this was occurring.

When we finally got off the plane, the hipsters were in the
lobby on their cellphones, and we couldn’t understand how they weren’t arrested
for stealing another person’s identification. It was a mad house and they
suggested we all redirect our flights which I did THREE times, only to be
disconnected right at the finalization. So frustrating. When we finally got a
new flight, they boarded the original to Chicago (3 hours late), and I realized,
FUDGE, they took our carry-ons underneath and we needed them. They had our car
keys in them.

Miracle of miracles, they let grounds people locate our bags
and get them to us so we could get to the rerouted flight.

The people, though, were outrageous and it was unnerving to
think that such behavior is allowed to exist in an airport, especially with
high security and all the stress on TSA. I didn’t see any manners: the airlines
employees, the customers, the telephone operators – UGH. What a giant mess.